Teaching Together: Engaging Parents and Preschoolers in STEM Activities & Academic Conversations

共同教学：让家长和学龄前儿童参与 STEM 活动

• 批准号: 1811356
• 负责人: Tricia Zucker
• 金额: $ 199.19万
• 依托单位: The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1811356&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Teaching; Together; Engaging; Parents; Preschoolers

As part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds innovative research, approaches and resources for use in a variety of settings. This project examines the conditions in which families and young learners most benefit from "doing science and math" together among a population that is typically underserved with respect to STEM experiences--families experiencing poverty. This project builds on an existing program called Teaching Together that uses interactive parent-child workshops led by a museum educator and focused on supporting STEM learning at home. The goal of these workshops is to increase parents'/caregivers' self-perception and ability to serve as their child's first teacher by supporting learning and inquiry conversations during daily routines and informal STEM activities. Families attend a series of afternoon and evening workshops at their child's preschool center and at a local children's museum. Parents/Caregivers may participate in online home learning activities and museum experiences. The project uses an experimental design to test the added value of providing incremental supports for informal STEM learning. The study uses an experimental design to address potential barriers parents/caregivers may perceive to doing informal STEM activities with their child. The project also explores how the quantity and quality parent-child informal learning interactions may relate to changes in children's science and mathematics knowledge during the pre-kindergarten year. The project partners include the Children's Learning Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Children's Museum of Houston. The project is designed to increase understanding of how parents/caregivers can be encouraged to support informal STEM learning by experimentally manipulating key aspects of the broader expectancy-value-cost motivation theory, which is well established in psychology and education literatures but has not been applied to preschool parent-child informal STEM learning. More specifically, the intervention conditions are designed to identify how specific parent supports can mitigate potential barriers that families experiencing poverty face. These intervention conditions include: modeling of informal STEM learning during workshops to address skills and knowledge barriers; materials to address difficulties accessing science and math resources; and incentives as a way to address parental time pressures and/or costs and thereby improve involvement in informal learning activities. Intervention effects will be calculated in terms of effect sizes and potential mediators of change will be explored with structural equation modeling. The first phase of the project uses an iterative process to refine the curriculum and expand the collection of resources designed for families of 3- to 5-year-olds. The second phase uses an experimental study of the STEM program to examine conditions that maximize participation and effectiveness of family learning programs. In all, 360 families will be randomly assigned to four conditions: 1) business-as-usual control; 2) the Teaching Together core workshop-based program; 3) Teaching Together workshops + provision of inquiry-based STEM activity kits for the home; and 4) Teaching Together workshop + activity kits + provision of monetary incentives for parents/caregivers when they document informal STEM learning experiences with their child. The interventions will occur in English and Spanish. A cost analysis across the interventions will also be conducted. This study uses quantitative and qualitative approaches. Data sources include parent surveys and interviews, conversation analysis of home learning activities, parent photo documentation of informal learning activities, and standardized assessments of children's growth in mathematics, science, and vocabulary knowledge.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

作为加强非正式环境中学习的总体战略的一部分，推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）项目资助了用于各种环境的创新研究、方法和资源。该项目考察了家庭和年轻学习者在STEM经验方面通常得不到充分服务的人群（即贫困家庭）中从“科学和数学”中获益最多的条件。该项目建立在一个名为“一起教学”的现有项目的基础上，该项目使用由博物馆教育工作者领导的互动亲子研讨会，重点是支持在家学习STEM。这些研讨会的目标是通过在日常和非正式的STEM活动中支持学习和探究对话，提高父母/照顾者的自我认知和作为孩子的第一位老师的能力。家长们下午和晚上在孩子的学前班中心和当地的儿童博物馆参加一系列讲习班。家长/看护人可以参与在线家庭学习活动和博物馆体验。该项目采用实验设计来测试为非正式STEM学习提供增量支持的附加价值。该研究采用实验设计来解决父母/照顾者可能认为与孩子进行非正式STEM活动的潜在障碍。该项目还探讨了亲子非正式学习互动的数量和质量如何与学龄前儿童科学和数学知识的变化有关。该项目的合作伙伴包括休斯顿德克萨斯大学健康科学中心的儿童学习研究所和休斯顿儿童博物馆。该项目旨在通过实验操纵更广泛的期望-价值-成本动机理论的关键方面，加深对如何鼓励父母/照顾者支持非正式STEM学习的理解。该理论在心理学和教育文献中已经得到了很好的确立，但尚未应用于学龄前亲子非正式STEM学习。更具体地说，干预条件的设计是为了确定具体的父母支持如何减轻贫困家庭面临的潜在障碍。这些干预条件包括：在讲习班期间对非正式STEM学习进行建模，以解决技能和知识障碍；解决获取科学和数学资源困难的材料；激励措施是解决父母时间压力和/或成本的一种方式，从而提高非正式学习活动的参与度。将根据效应大小计算干预效果，并利用结构方程模型探索潜在的变化中介。该项目的第一阶段采用迭代过程来完善课程，并扩大为3至5岁儿童家庭设计的资源集合。第二阶段使用STEM计划的实验研究来检查最大化家庭学习计划参与和有效性的条件。总共有360个家庭将被随机分配到四种情况下：1)一切照旧；2)“一起教学”核心工作坊项目；3)共同教学工作坊+为家庭提供探究式STEM活动工具包；4)“一起教学”工作坊+活动工具包+为父母/照顾者提供金钱奖励，当他们记录孩子非正式的STEM学习经历时。干预将以英语和西班牙语进行。还将对所有干预措施进行成本分析。本研究采用定量和定性相结合的方法。数据来源包括家长调查和访谈、家庭学习活动的对话分析、非正式学习活动的家长照片记录、儿童数学、科学和词汇知识成长的标准化评估。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。